My First Official Mother's Day

We’ve unintentionally started a Mother’s Day tradition. As our story goes, I first met the boys last year on Mother’s Day. We had brunch together at a favorite local restaurant and then went to the park to play. Whether it’s coincidental or ironic that I met them on Mother’s Day who knows, but I find it special. This year was the same in going to brunch and then playing at a park afterward, except that we also included my Grandma in on the brunch this year. My mom would have been there too except she was super sick this last weekend.

Actually, I was rather nervous about Mother’s Day this year. As we do every month I drew up the Visitation Schedule for the month of May. Jane hadn't said anything about wanting them for Mother’s Day. And knowing her schedule I didn’t know if she was going to try to get Sunday off or not. So I drafted it with the usual Thursday night dinners and one overnight Friday. She didn’t say anything and she signed it as usual. I was kind of anxious and stressed the whole week before Mother’s Day weekend. By that Sunday I had told my mom to go ahead and finalize reservations for brunch. I waited anxiously for Jane to call with the demands for them.

She never called. I didn’t know if her guy was going to do anything for her for Mother’s Day so I went ahead and got her a card when I was getting Mother’s Day cards for everyone else. I even printed out a photo of the boys from our Family/Engagement photo shoot for her (mainly because I had printed one out for her mom Jolie and I didn’t want to risk any drama of ‘Where is my photo?” from her). I had the boys write a message to her and sign their names. For Younger Boy’s signature I had him paint on his 3-year-old sized handprint and neatly wrote his name underneath it. He enjoyed it because 1) he got to choose which colors for each card and 2) he got to finger paint at the same time.

I was kind of proud of myself for including both Jane and Jolie in my round of purchasing Mother’s Day cards. I considered trying to find a craft kit so the boys could make them something but I wasn’t too impressed with any of the kits Target had that day. I figured having the boys draw photos and writing them a note and printing out a newer photo of the three of them would suffice. That and I didn't want to spend any of my hard earned money on something for her that she wasn't going to appreciate. I don’t know if Jane really gave a darn or not. According to my fiancé she didn’t get anything last year. But I’m going to pretend that she was thrilled to get a card from the boys and thankful to have an up-to-date photo of them and a chance to spend time with them. (Even if she did spend the evening playing online games according to Older Boy, but that's a different rant.)

On to my first official Mother’s Day experience – I really enjoyed it. I felt really special. Middle Boy made me a card at school and Older Boy drew me a hand-made card. And I about cried when Middle Boy came running up with a big hug later on that evening and said “You’re the best Mom ever!”

I’m also very thankful that Mother’s Day went off without any drama from Jane. Although, as usual, I kind of wondered if she cared of not about the holiday, but I’m learning not to wonder so much about whether or not she cares. She either truly doesn’t care, or she cares a little but not really, or she does care and she’s stewing but she doesn’t care enough to do anything about it. I just try to stay three steps ahead for the boys’ sake. I figure that as long as they are happy and felt like they were able to celebrate both their moms then I can be happy. And with all the love they sent my way I felt like I’m doing a good job at this instant mom position. It washed over me in a relaxing and therapeutic balm, and I felt a little more confident (even if it was for the moment) that I’m going to be OK at this.

Even the cats were pretty nice to me on Mother’s Day. They let me sleep in a little later. They didn’t yell at me to feed them, like they usually do, and actually showed that they had some patience. All in all, we had a great and drama-free Mother’s Day.

And I Felt Relief

I’ve hardly had a moment to myself the last week or so. I really need to learn to find some time each day for me, because I think I’m going to lose my head sometimes.

I bought a book recently, and it is amazing. It’s A Career Girl’s Guide To Becoming A Stepmom: Expert Advice from Other Stepmoms on How to Juggle Your Job, Your Marriage, and Your New Stepkids by Jacquelyn B. Fletcher. I love this book. I’m only in the first chapter, but it has already helped a lot already.

It’s an interactive book, and asks you to get a notebook because they have a few questions in each chapter, and it asks you to be quite honest in doing the exercises. It even suggest that you discuss the things you discover with your husband/fiancé/boyfriend.

I cried tears of relief after just reading the intro. I’ve read another book on being a step mother … it wasn’t bad. But it didn’t really reach me. But this book … this book spoke to me. I’ve already marked it up and wrote in the margins.

I’m only partway through the first chapter (Cinderella’s Man Didn’t Have Any Kids; Why Does Mine?), but it took me about an hour and half to really get through the first 10 questions. (Which I answered during a bout of insomnia Monday night.) I wanted to post them here for you in case any of you wanted to try the exercise. The first section of Chapter One (The Fall of the Fantasy) was about confronting what your fantasy future was (Something I’ve already admitted having problems coping with), and trying to learn where you can compromise and what you need to let go of.

1. What did you imagine your married life would be like?
2. In what ways is your current situation like what you imagined?
3. In what ways is it different?
4. Is it OK for you to express sadness about the ways in which it is not what you expected? If not, why not? Write down the emotions this brings up for you. Write down all the negative feelings it dredges up even if you’d never admit them to anyone else.
5. When you think of the phrase “It’s not fair!” what comes to mind? Throw a tantrum on the page and get it out.
6. What is your definition of family? Write down “My family is…” ten times and see how many ways you answer that question.
7. What is your vision of yourself at 85 years old? Where are you? Who is with you?
8. What is your family supposed to do for you?
9. Describe what you want your new family to be like.
10. What’s your definition of home?
    

I must admit that Question 5 was most therapeutic. In fact, after I had answered Question 10 I had another one for Question 5. I think it helped the most because I was able to get out all that frustration and anger and bitterness, and make some organization out of the feelings and thoughts, instead of having them jumbled and shoved deep down inside where they all get mixed up together. I can start to heal that now that I've really stopped to take a look at what was causing all that anger in this current situation.

So now, I just have to work on finding time to sit down to finish the chapter out, because there are more question at the end of the chapter that I need to sit down and do (without kids awake) because man – getting all that out brings quite a few tears and causes quite a few meltdown moments of head down on table.